The Natural Alignment Between Coffee and Charging
A Level 2 AC charging session on a 7.4 kW charger takes 45–90 minutes for a meaningful top-up. A DC fast-charging session at 60 kW adds 60–80 km of range in 20–30 minutes. In both cases, the driver has time they need to spend somewhere — and that time is commercially valuable to a café, restaurant, hotel, or co-working space located nearby.
Hospitality-anchored EV charging is already an established model in Europe and the US, where networks like Pod Point (UK) and Blink (US) have documented that EV drivers at hospitality charging locations spend 35–55% more per visit than non-EV customers, dwell significantly longer, and demonstrate higher repeat visit rates. The alignment of interests is genuine: the charger drives footfall, the hospitality venue drives session revenue, and the driver gets a useful stop rather than a dead wait.
How the Cafe Charge Model Works
EVBooth's Cafe Charge programme installs 2–4 AC chargers at a partner café or restaurant's parking area, with the infrastructure owned and maintained by EVBooth. The partner receives a revenue share on charging sessions (structured as a per-kWh payment), prominent listing in the EVBooth app as a Cafe Charge destination, and co-branded physical signage. The partner makes no capital investment and carries no maintenance obligation.
For the economics to work for both sides, the site needs adequate parking adjacent to the venue, a minimum of 6–8 hours/day of active trading (so the chargers are in a context where drivers will stay), and sufficient footfall to sustain charger utilisation above the break-even threshold of roughly 15–20% of rated capacity. Most mid-to-upper-tier cafés and restaurants in urban areas meet these criteria.
The EV driver is an operationally ideal hospitality customer: they arrive with a planned dwell time, they have a reason to spend (coffee, food, work space), and they skew toward the income bracket that spends freely. Unlike the ICE driver who might grab a coffee to go, the EV driver has a structural reason to sit.
Where Cafe Charge Is Today and Where It Is Going
EVBooth's Cafe Charge programme is live at a growing number of partner locations across our operating cities. We are actively expanding the partner network and welcome enquiries from café, restaurant, hotel, and co-working space operators interested in hosting a Cafe Charge installation. If your venue has parking, a hospitality offering, and adequate footfall — and you would like to understand what the revenue and footfall model looks like for your specific situation — we are happy to run the numbers with you.